Technics SL-15 Reviews

Technics SL-15

I ran into the SL 15. Heard stories about it and was able to buy it with the original EPC P205Cmk3 with close to new tip. I had to service the table, since the arm didn't move at all anymore after years of collecting dust. Cleaned out all the old and cluttered grease and replaced the arm belt. Cleaned the entire inside of the player and hooked it up using a coupld of vd Hul cables. Man, was I in for a surprise! It completely blew me away!! I have the player now next to an SP15 with an EPA 501G and AT33Sa cartridge. The sound stage, accuracy and speed is close to and sometimes better than the SP15/AT33 and I am constantly using the SL15 instead of the SP15. Programming it and using the buttons is a bit of a learning curve, as it is a bit picky at times, but the player is very silent, very accurate and it does what it needs to do with the premium you can easily program the player to only play your favorite tracks. Putting any size of record into it and it will sort everything out for you. I'll keep this one for a while.

There's a lot of love here for the SL-10 and a number of reviews...but surprisingly no review for the arguably improved big brother. Yes I'm talking about the SL-15 and it deserves a lot of love. Music gear comes and goes...every once in awhile we hang on to a special piece of equipment and this is one of those. Once upon a time I had dual Marantz 1060 integrateds (mono bridged) powering a set of Acustat panels and had two very good turntables to choose from. There was this- the SL-15 with its impressive MM cart and eliptical and on the other side of the shelf there was the mighty SL-1200 with a Shure V-15type3 and a Supertracker Plus hyper elliptical. Before the 15 showed up- every other turntable I pitted against the 1200 lost the race. Then one day I found the 15 and expected it to be close. It was too close to call. Blind A/B tests (along with friends) couldn't consistently discern the two. So- the 1200 was sold (kept the V15 and stylus) and the 15 took its place as king of the vinyl castle. It still sits on the throne. Super quiet machine, robust, sweet at times, utterly convincing and fully automatic...and takes up the same amount of space as an LP. A marvel of engineering and a giant killer. The 15 deserves serious consideration if you are in the market for a legacy linear tracker.

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